Latest / Solopreneur Sessions with Fexingo: One-Person Businesses, Freelancing, and Independent Work / How a Solopreneur Built a Remote Team of VAs in the Philippines
Transcript
- Lucas: There's a point in every solopreneur's journey where you realise you can't do it all yourself. You're trading your time for money at a rate that doesn't scale. So the logical next step is hiring help — but that's where a lot of people freeze. Luna: Right, because hiring an employee feels like a huge leap — benefits, payroll taxes, the risk of a bad fit. And hiring a contractor locally can be expensive. Lucas: Exactly. So today I want to talk about a specific approach that's worked for a lot of solopreneurs I've interviewed: building a remote team of virtual assistants in the Philippines. Not through an agency — directly. Finding people on online job platforms, training them yourself, and building a long-term relationship. Luna: I've seen this work well. The cost savings are dramatic, but there are cultural and logistical hurdles. Where do you even start? Lucas: Let me walk through a concrete case. A designer I know — let's call her Sarah — ran a one-woman branding agency. She was doing everything: client calls, design work, invoicing, social media. She was burning out at about 50 hours a week, and her revenue was capped because she couldn't take on more clients. Luna: Classic solopreneur ceiling. Lucas: Exactly. So she decided to hire a virtual assistant. She went on OnlineJobs.ph — that's a Filipino-focused job board — and posted a very specific ad. Not 'general assistant,' but 'customer support and scheduling VA, 20 hours a week, must have experience with Calendly and Gmail.' She got over a hundred applicants in 48 hours. Luna: That's a lot of filtering. How did she narrow it down? Lucas: She used a two-step process. First, a short written test — a simulated email response and a scheduling task. That cut the pile by about 80 percent. Then she did a 15-minute video call with the top 10 candidates, testing English fluency and asking about their internet setup. She ended up hiring a woman named Myla at $5 an hour. Luna: Five dollars an hour feels low, but in the Philippines, that's actually a competitive wage for remote work, especially outside Manila. Lucas: Right. And Sarah wasn't trying to exploit anyone — she started at that rate because Myla had no prior VA experience, just a college degree and strong English skills. Sarah committed to regular raises based on performance. Within six months, Myla was at $8 an hour, and after a year, $12, because she had taken over client onboarding and social media management entirely. Luna: So the key is treating it as a long-term investment, not just cheap labor. What about training? That's a big time commitment upfront. Lucas: It is. Sarah spent about 10 hours in the first week creating very detailed standard operating procedures — SOPs — for every recurring task. She used Loom to record herself doing each process, then had Myla repeat it back. That initial investment paid for itself within a month because Sarah freed up 15 hours a week almost immediately. Luna: Yeah, I've heard that the first VA is the hardest because you have to build the systems from scratch. But once you have those SOPs, hiring a second VA becomes much faster. Lucas: That's exactly what happened. After six months, Sarah hired a second VA — also from the Philippines — specifically for bookkeeping and invoicing. She found her through a referral from Myla. That's another advantage: your first hire can help you find the next one, because they know the culture and the expectations. Luna: And the cost structure shifts. At $12 an hour for Myla and maybe $8 for the bookkeeper, Sarah was spending about $3,200 a month on her team. But she had gone from 50-hour weeks to 25-hour weeks, and her revenue had doubled because she could take on more clients. Lucas: Right. The return on investment is pretty clear. But there are pitfalls. One big one is time zone overlap. The Philippines is 12 to 16 hours ahead of US Eastern time, depending on daylight saving. That means your VA is working while you're sleeping. For some tasks that's fine — you can send instructions at night and have them done by morning. But for real-time collaboration, you need to schedule overlapping hours. Luna: Sarah handled that by having a two-hour overlap every morning. She'd start her day at 8 a.m. Eastern, which was 8 p.m. in Manila. So Myla would work from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. Manila time, overlapping with Sarah for the first two hours. That worked because Myla preferred late shifts. Lucas: Flexibility on both sides. Another pitfall is communication style. Filipinos tend to be very polite and might not push back if they don't understand something. So Sarah learned to ask explicitly: 'Do you have any questions?' and 'Show me what you understood.' That cut down on errors significantly. Luna: I've also heard that payment methods can be tricky. What did Sarah use? Lucas: She used Wise for direct bank transfers, which has low fees and good exchange rates. You can also use Payoneer or even PayPal, but the fees can add up. And she paid weekly at first to build trust, then switched to biweekly after a month. Luna: That's smart. Weekly payments help a new VA feel secure, especially if they're used to unreliable clients. Lucas: One thing that often gets overlooked is legal compliance. When you hire a contractor in the Philippines, you don't have to worry about US employment taxes, but you do need to make sure they're classified correctly under Philippine law. Most VAs register as freelancers with the Bureau of Internal Revenue, and they handle their own taxes. But it's worth asking about that upfront. Luna: And what about equipment? Does Sarah provide a laptop or anything? Lucas: In the beginning, Myla used her own laptop and internet. But after a year, Sarah bought her a second monitor and a noise-canceling headset as a bonus. Some solopreneurs offer a monthly internet stipend — maybe $30 — to ensure reliable connectivity. That's a small cost for peace of mind. Luna: It's a partnership, really. You're investing in someone's career, and they're investing in your business. The best relationships I've seen last for years. Lucas: That's the goal. And here's the thing — if these conversations have helped you think more clearly about building your own business, or saved you time or money, that's exactly why we do this show. We keep it ad-free and focused on practical stories, and that's made possible by listeners who support us directly. If you've gotten value from Solopreneur Sessions, you can throw a few dollars our way at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. No pressure — just a way to keep the episodes coming. Luna: Yeah, it really does help. Every bit of support goes straight into research and production time, so we can keep digging up these real-world case studies. Lucas: Alright, back to Sarah's story. After about 18 months with Myla and the bookkeeper, Sarah felt ready to step back from client work entirely. She promoted Myla to operations manager, gave her a raise to $15 an hour, and hired a third VA — a junior designer — to handle the simpler design tasks. Sarah herself moved into a sales and strategy role. Luna: So she went from solopreneur to a small agency owner. That's a big transformation. Lucas: It is. And the key enabler was that initial leap of trust — hiring that first VA. For any solopreneur listening who's on the fence, I'd say: start with one task you hate doing, document the process, and hire someone to take it over. Even if it's just 5 hours a week. The ROI is almost immediate. Luna: And don't be afraid to start at a lower rate if the person is new. You can always increase it as they prove themselves. Just be transparent about the growth path. Lucas: Exactly. Sarah's story isn't unique — I've heard variations from a dozen solopreneurs. The common thread is: they treated their VAs as partners, not expendable help. They invested in training, paid fairly relative to local standards, and built a culture of feedback. That's what turns a $5-an-hour experiment into a long-term scalable team.